Crews from as far away as Canada in Pa. to help restore power

Crews from Hydro Quebec of Canada assess the power outage situation on St. Peter’s Road in North Coventry. The company sent in 51 crews to help local areas restore power from ice storm. (Photo by Kevin Hoffman, The Mercury)

This infographic from PECO shows how the company decides where to start working first. (Courtesy of PECO)

POTTSTOWN — While PECO crews are working to restore power to thousands still in the dark, the utility has called in reinforcements from neighboring states and Canada to deal with the aftermath of one of the worst ice storms to ever strike the region.

Approximately 89,000 PECO residents in Chester County were still without power as late as Friday evening. Another 80,000 customers were without power in Montgomery County.

At the North Coventry Fire Company, crews from Hydro-Quebec were preparing for another day of repairs on Friday.

PECO spokesperson Frank Maher said the Canadian crew is part of the 2,300 visiting field workers called in to help after the historic storm.

Advertisement

“In total, we have 5,100 people working this storm,” Maher said.

Daniel Dumas, the emergency manager for Hydro-Quebec distribution, said the 121 employee “mission” was rerouted from Long Island, N.Y., on Wednesday.

“It took longer than normal to arrive,” he said. “We drove for 13 hours.”

For the Canadian crew, being called in to help is something they have done before.

The company has been to various parts of the region and as far south as Florida to help restore power after storms, according to Dumas.

Despite a potential language barrier, Dumas said his employees did not have any trouble starting work as soon as they arrived.

“A power line is a power line and a transformer is a transformer,” he said. “Components are the same or very similar from one company to another.”

Although his employees work from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m., the Hydro-Quebec crews will stay in the area as long as it takes.

“We will stay until the last customer has power back on,” Dumas said.

But a secondary outage that knocked power out to several areas around the borough raised questions about how long the outage will last.

Maher said the outage — which darkened the newsroom of The Mercury, a sister paper of The Times Herald, in downtown Pottstown around 6:30 p.m. Thursday — could have been caused by any number of things. At this point, he was unable to confirm whether the cause was a crash or a result of work being done by crews.

He said residents should still be prepared to lose power while crews work to remedy the situation.

“We know this is a tough time for everyone,” Maher said. He explained that while crews work to restore power to homes, melting ice and rising temperatures can cause issues with the power lines and transformers.

Around 7 p.m. Thursday, the Coventry Mall was completely dark and attempts to contact management by phone on Friday morning only resulted in a busy signal.

Tyler Hartenstine, an employee at the Wawa on Route 724 in North Coventry, said the store lost power around the same time as the mall.

“For a while, we were the only store with power,” he said. “I found out about (the outage) at a quarter-after-six this morning.”

Hartenstine was unable to say how the convenience store near Route 100 was informing customers that the power was out, but none of the lights were on.

For residents who have been without power from more than 36 hours, waiting for their homes to get back to working order can be frustrating.

According to Maher, PECO always assess the situation for the safest way to restore power, then crews begin working on repairing high voltage lines and transmission centers. After that, Maher said crews begin working on essential buildings like hospitals, police departments and fire stations.

The fourth step, which is to repair the main distribution lines, is where thousands of people could see power back all at once, according to Maher. The fifth and sixth steps are when crews focus on restoring circuits and repairing individual power lines.

“We are trying to get to everything as quickly as possible,” he said. “Crews work between 12- and 16-hour shifts.”

Despite the large number of linemen in the field, Maher said the hardest hit areas could still be waiting for power into the beginning of next week.